Soap operas or telenovelas are extremely popular in Brazil and other parts of Latin America. In the recent past soap opera producers have been encouraged to use this medium to promote socially responsible messages. Three telenovelas that have fullfilled a need for both education and entertainment are: Por Amor; Torre De Babel and Meu Bem Querer.

Communication Strategies:

Three soap operas, entitled Por Amor, Torre De Babel and Meu Bem Querer, which featured story lines addressing urban issues such as racism, street violence, and prisoners rights.

Development Issues:

Rights, education, political development, community development.

Key Points:

As the population in Brazil's cities increases, urban issues such as racism, street violence and prisoners rights have become increasingly important. In order to address these issues in the media, producers of telenovelas have been encouraged to add them to their story lines.

Comments

Yes, Brazilian 'telenovelas' despite their rich charm, virtue, population audience or whatever, bring one who seems to appreciate them a hidden vice: that of wondering, daydreaming or spacing one out. They only have a main deep line, that of turning reality into fiction. Coupled with local News-Hour (in the case of Globo, Jornal Nacional) which does the exact oposite of them, turning reality into fiction, both jointly, distort the minds of average middle and lower classes. There are few studies of them which are not major acts of sicophants, trying to win favors of a powerful clientele. No critical theories can win that one: fans, readers, watchers, whoever, just do not understand the ultimate end of telenovelas whcich are anything but controlling the crowds, filling their minds with cheap entertainment and general acquisition garbage. No wonder Chavez of Venezuela is trying to get rid of malevolous influences to his people by doing away with those nasty and aggressive TV stations and their weird unrealistic programs, which, unfortunately congregate large crowds to watch, because of its appeal, its merchandizing, or its plain use of artists as clowns of a rotten system that favors ignorance of truth, instead the dire reality of life. Brazilian TV is a true shame insofar as educating its large population of viewers, and what is worse, evangelical garbage is now seeping into it in very large steps. I fear for Brazilians who seem so proud of their ignorant but blissful situation. No wonder the old Pope Paul, claiming in a local jargon "god is Brazilian!" wanted to be a Brazilian as well. Stupidity reigns in his general realm . . .

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